


All I desire

by fromthedeskoftheraven



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Implied/Referenced Sex, Post-Battle of Five Armies, Thranduil's second marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-17
Updated: 2016-08-17
Packaged: 2018-08-09 09:58:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7797391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fromthedeskoftheraven/pseuds/fromthedeskoftheraven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thranduil has a change of heart toward his wife after the BOTFA.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All I desire

You entered the chambers you shared with Thranduil to find him directing the efforts of his personal attendants as they gathered a selection of traveling clothes from his wardrobes. He paused to greet you with a fleeting smile before turning his attention back to the calm, efficient bustle of activity that surrounded him.

“So it is true,” you said quietly. “You’re going to Erebor.”

Thranduil caught the eye of his valet, and with a minute flick of the King’s ~~~~head, the servant shepherded his assistants to the door and bowed himself discreetly from the room.

“The dragon is dead,” Thranduil said, taking up the task of adding a brocade cloak to the growing stack of his effects. “It is high time I took back what belongs to me.”

“The dwarves’ King did not strike me as a man to be bargained with,” you observed.

“No, I am certain he is not,” Thranduil said coolly. “But he will find the armies of the Woodland Realm persuasive enough.”

“Will you truly go to war over these jewels?”

“The white gems of Lasgalen are no mere baubles, _meleth_ ,” he said, with a bitter smile. 

“The beauty of any jewel is diminished that is paid for with bloodshed.”

He circled behind you, his graceful hand sweeping your hair over one shoulder, and you struggled to tamp down the desire that reflexively tingled in your body at the hot press of his lips to your exposed neck.

“Perhaps you would feel differently if they should adorn your pretty neck,” he murmured.

_They will always belong to another_ , you thought. _Along with your heart._

“Thranduil, I beg you not to count these dwarves’ lives so cheap,” you pleaded. “Have they not loved ones who will mourn them? **Do you even care?** I should think you, of all people, would.”

Thranduil had moved to face you again, taking your chin between his finger and thumb with a delicate touch that only hinted at his restrained strength, as velvet cloaking iron. “Do not presume to speak of things you do not understand, my lady,” he said grimly, his mouth set in a hard line. “The dwarves are but children of stone, and to the stone they will return. It matters not when or how.”

Pride compelled you to hold his gaze, though stinging tears welled in your eyes, blurring your vision as you whispered, “your heart is as cold and hard as the gems you desire.”

He released his hold on your chin, arching an eyebrow. **“I don’t like it when you cry,”** he said in his silkiest voice, meticulously smoothing a loose strand of hair behind your ear. “Show me a smiling face when I return from my journey.”

* * *

It was a bereft company that trickled back into the Woodland Realm.

Thranduil had sent word ahead of heavy casualties, funerals, time spent healing the wounded…and, in an unexpected personal missive to you, of loss among the living as well as the dead: Legolas, gone to seek his fate in the wilderlands, and Tauriel leaving her heart behind her in a new tomb in the Lonely Mountain.

He was stoic, dismounting a borrowed horse before the palace gates where you waited to meet him, though your knowing eyes saw that he had been shaken. 

“I am glad of your safe return, my lord.”

“As am I, _meleth nín_ ,” he murmured, inclining his head in a formal greeting, and you stepped closer, taking his hand in yours.

“Come and take your refreshment, Thranduil,” you said gently.

He nodded, and after pausing to give instruction to his generals, he followed you through the open gates and into his halls.

Dinner in your chambers was a largely silent affair, punctuated by his occasional, absentminded inquiries about conditions in Mirkwood and your answers that aimed to soothe, and soon after, he withdrew to his dressing room to exchange his formal robes for the comfort of nightclothes.

You stood at the window, gazing out at the dark forest, when he emerged into the bedchamber clad in lightweight trousers and a silken robe draped over his bare chest. 

“Shall I send for wine?”

“No,” he answered, crossing the room to stand beside you, looking pensively at the night outside before turning a searching gaze upon you. “Will you forsake me, _meleth_?”

“Thranduil…never,” you frowned, taken aback. “Have I ever given you cause to doubt my devotion?”

“No, indeed,” he said soberly. “It is I who am guilty of that charge.”

“You have been much burdened with cares.”

“It is a poor excuse for neglecting such a flower,” he said, stroking your face with his slender fingers with a strange, unfamiliar reverence. “You love me.”

“Always,” you vowed, your cheeks warming with the flush that crept into them.

Thranduil’s hands moved to cradle your jaw, his thumb tracing your cheekbone as his eyes roved your face as if for the first time. “All I desire is you,” he murmured intently, “above riches and kingdom. Can you believe this of me?”

Your hands closed over his strong forearms, and though your mind hardly dared to imagine the change this ill-fated war had wrought in him, your heart swelled with the raw honesty you saw in his eyes. “Yes,” you breathed. “Yes, Thranduil.”

“ _Le melin_ , my Queen.” He clasped your hand in his, lifting it to press his lips to the inside of your wrist, sparking lightning in your veins.

“Let me show you,” you smiled, and a desperate, grateful sigh escaped his lips as he spread his arms in offering.

“Take what is yours.”

He made love to you as though it cleansed him, tender and vulnerable as you’d never known him before, as if every surge of his body, every caress of your hands drove the bitterness from his heart that had poisoned him for millennia, and when you lay spent and entwined in one another’s arms his lips brushed your forehead, a gentle whisper ushered you to your rest.

“All I desire is you.”


End file.
